


Kismet

by anonymousgratification



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Demisexuality, Developing Relationship, Intimacy, Loneliness, M/M, Mutual Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Regret, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 05:48:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19056460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonymousgratification/pseuds/anonymousgratification
Summary: After years isolating himself, Dick increases his presence in Gotham, and with it, a connection emerges he never expected.





	Kismet

**Author's Note:**

> Messing around with a few ideas that have been implied... and some parts of Dick's character a lot of people avoid. This is the longest thing I've ever posted. I hope this flows the way it does in my head.  
> xo

Nightwing and Robin inspect the docks, perched on the corner of a building, waiting for an opening. After days of tracking, the drug ring they are investigating has been traced here. Batman entrusted the investigation to Dick and Damian, while he’s busied himself with another crime. 

An opportunity arises, with it a prospect of taking down the operation, and a look beneath lensed eyes is all Damian needs to glide of the building after Dick. 

They work fluidly, a boot to the face by Damian, and an adeptly timed punch by Dick. 

A magnetism brings their combat closer and closer. Damian and Dick end up back to back, harmonizing their bodies as they fight. 

As far as criminals, they are amateurs and their shipment is stopped with less effort than there could be. Dick calls in the location and finishes binding the culprits. 

Departing from the scene, Dick nudges Damian’s shoulder with his. “We should do this more often,” he says. 

No answer comes from Damian but the smallest of smirks.

* * *

 

Dick ends up staying the night at the Manor, and when he comes down for breakfast, he’s greeted by Alfred. A cup of tea sits in front of Damian at the table, as he mumbles out his name to address him. 

Damian takes a sip and stands for more tea, Alfred pouring a cup as Bruce walks in. 

Bruce greets them all with the enthusiasm he always has, which is none, and then furrows his eyebrows at Damian. “Father.”

He sighs, then, “Damian.”

Nodding, Damian leaves from the kitchen, taking his cup of tea into the yard, Titus following behind him. Dick tilts his head, deciding to follow him out, shutting the door, and searching for Damian. 

Damian’s seated over the cushioned bench on the porch. Lowering his cup from his mouth, he glowers. “What?” 

“Can’t I spend time with you?” he asks. Damian doesn’t respond, placing his cup on the glass table ahead of them. 

Dick sits beside him. “What’s with the― even more than usual― stiff interaction between you and Bruce?”

“It’s possible he’s annoyed with me,” Damian says. Yet, he looks amused. 

“Possible? How come?”

“I may have called him old.”

“Old?” Dick chuckles. 

“He’s graying, Richard. And dawdling on patrol. If everyone is far too cowardly to inform him, it is my duty to.” He pauses. “As Robin.”

“How exactly did you inform him?” Dick can’t imagine a scenario where Damian was gentle about it. Or kind at all. The idea makes him want to giggle. He doesn’t. 

“I simply reminded him of his senescence.”

“Sure you did.”

Their conversation drifts away. In the silence, Damian becomes annoyed, speaking with a caustic tone he tries to repress, but it bleeds through. “Why are you here still? Don’t you have a pedestrian life to get back to in Bludhaven?” 

When Dick stopped being Batman, he didn’t disappear entirely, but there was a time when Damian was younger, and smaller, and felt as if he had left to never again return. He came around for Christmas, and his birthday, and once or twice a month for a case, but that was as Nightwing, not Dick. For a period, Damian had hated Nightwing― the title, because to him it sounded like leaving, and it felt like replacement. It was the name Dick left him for. The name more important than Batman, than Robin― the name more important than Damian. 

A few years passed and he stopped coming around as often, even missing a few holidays and bitter was the word to describe it, the ache in his heart, but it began to shrink as he met new friends, and his father started to trust him in a way he hadn’t prior, and the Manor felt less like the place Dick left him, and more like the place he belonged. His visits were rare, but as time went on, Damian started to understand more with the encephalon of Dick’s friend, and less of a child who was scared of being abandoned, and anguished by the mere thought of doing something wrong; so wrong for Dick to hate him and forget of their partnership, of their months together in the penthouse. Still, there was always a part of him, wishing for Dick to be down the hall, or to stumble in through the cave.

“Sick of me?” Sighing, Dick leans back, resting his arms behind his head on the bench. “I guess… I missed the family.” He smiles over at Damian. “I might have even missed you.”

“Whatever.” He scoffs. “You’re the one who left.”

“Yeah. I did.”

Damian’s voice quiets. “Why?”

Dick’s eyes widen. All he can do is repeat the question. “Why?” 

“Why… Why did you leave? Other than Bludhaven being such a _lovely_ place to live,” he sneers. 

Dick finds himself laughing, but it turns solemn a moment later. He missed Damian’s snark, with a layer of something distinctly him underneath; insecure and tender. “I…” Dick takes a deep breath. “Honestly?”

“Are you hoping to lie?”

“No.” Dick lowers his hands to his lap. He stares ahead at the ground of the Manor, the field of grass and plants. Damian’s dog slowly treads up the porch. 

A gust of wind goes by, blowing leaves on the concrete. The trees susurrate. “I never wanted to be Batman.” 

He risks a look in Damian’s direction, watching his eyebrows furrow, as he tries to hide the uncertainty and dissatisfaction the statement brings. Dick continuing speaking, wanting to will the expression way. “I respect Bruce. He… he raised me. He guided me when I was lost and angry and had nowhere to put it. But… he lets the work consume him. It’s all he _wants_ to care about.”

Dick slides his hands down over his jeans, squinting up at the sky. “I didn’t want that. I didn’t want it to consume me. I didn’t want to be just Batman or just Nightwing. I still wanted to be Dick. I still wanted a life outside of it all. Batman was his obsession. His fixation on the night his parents died.” Once more, he glances at Damian, and there’s more confusion than desolation. “That’s what the mantle meant to me.”

Damian hums. Dick runs a hand through his hair, taking Damian’s soft noise as a response, urging him to proceed. “When I found out Bruce died, I was scared. I missed him, and I was so pissed off, but… more than that… nagging at me was the obligation of being Batman." 

Dismal, Dick laughs, broken in all the wrong places. “It’s fucked up, I mean… he died and all I could think was I was so angry at him for leaving me with all these decisions to make. The responsibility of being the Bat. It felt like part of me died with him. Knowing he was gone, and knowing I’d have to do what I promised myself I never would.” 

The dog stands to chase something, though he’s sluggish, graying like Bruce is, white fur scattered over him. “Growing up with Bruce… with Batman, I promised I wouldn’t let it be like that for me. I promised I wouldn’t do what he does, until he’s on the brink of insanity, working and working until he can barely stand… I didn’t want that. I promised myself.” Dick closes his eyes, remembering. “Nightwing was… my control over it. My life and what I wanted. I had to leave. I know… I know I was the worst, and left as soon as the opportunity came, as soon as Bruce…” He looks over at Damian. Their eyes meet. A similar lamented gaze. “You were what made me want to stay.”

“But you didn’t,” Damian says, his eyes glinting. It’s almost a challenge, Damian’s eyes, burning at him, provoking him to share what he normally wouldn’t. 

“I considered it. I thought about it so much. Having you come with me. Staying in Gotham.” Something like regret stings inside him, and Dick has to turn his head. “But I couldn’t.” Dick leans forward, elbows on his knees. “It had nothing to do with you, I swear it never did. I wanted to stay by your side. I wanted to be with you, and help you, and listen to your complicated insults,” he smirks, “but I _couldn’t_. I didn’t want to resent you because of the job, and I didn’t want to resent Bruce more. He didn’t just leave me with the responsibility of Gotham. He left me with his son he just learned about. His…”

“Bloodthirsty son?” Damian jeers. 

Dick glimpses at him, to grin. “It was fear. I didn’t want to hurt you. I didn’t want to hurt him. I didn’t want to let you down. I didn’t believe in myself. I was much younger then. I was _too_ young. And you… you deserved a father. Not a cheap substitute.”

“I never thought of you as a substitute for my father.”

“I know.” He does. “But… you were so young, too. A ten year old who needed guidance I didn’t have to give.”

“You’re an idiot, Richard,” Damian says from behind him. He averts his stare when Dick peers at him. “You changed my life.” 

Dick did more than that. It feels small in comparison; the words to the impact he’s had. Dick was the first to see him as a person― not a weapon, nor a legacy. 

“You did that.” Smiling, Dick leans back to sit beside Damian, and maybe a bit closer to him, too. “Without you, I don’t know if I would have survived. You’ve helped me in more ways than I can even tell you.” 

“Hm."

“Me and Bruce… we had problems before he left, before he died, before you came… and I knew if I stayed, with him… and you, and our relationship, and everything you meant to me, I’d start to hate him. Hate him for… a lot of things. You wouldn’t have deserved that.”

“You could have visited more.”

Dick laughs, soft. “I know. I could’ve.”

Damian shocks him with a head on his shoulder. He leans over, whispering, something confidential between the two of them. “I missed you.”

Dick forgot how meaningful his small, gradual affection is. It fills his heart in a different way than anyone else has been capable of. Dick rests his head over Damian’s, tilted on his shoulder, fitting right in the space of his neck. “I missed you more.”

Titus stomps over and lands beneath their feet, as if holding them there. Dick leans down to pet him, and when he returns to his spot, Damian’s head goes right for his shoulder again. 

Dick smiles, with a bit of a chortle in it. “You know… maybe you’re the one getting old. You’re strangely sentimental.”

Damian tuts. “If anyone’s old, it’s you.”

Dick lightly taps his head with his. “Hey, I’m at my prime.” He snickers. "I still get hit on all the time during patrol.”

Damian scoffs. “So did I. When I was _twelve_.”

Dick grimaces, though Damian can’t see it. “Gross.”

* * *

 

Damian’s hand grips the edge of the building, eyes planted on the man walking beneath them. The man has been connected to a series of murders, and once again, Damian was teamed up with Dick. 

From beside him, Dick grabs his shoulder, noticing the itch in his body; the way he’s eager to move. “Not yet.”

“Why not? He’s alone.”

Dick tightens his hand, eyes on the man below them. “Do you trust me?”

Dick can see Damian’s annoyed expression, even below the mask and hood. Yet, his voice is steady, and his answer, though full of scorn, is layered by respect and credence. “Yes.”

The reminder and the hand squeezing his shoulder is all Damian needs for his body to stop teetering over the side of the building. 

A moment later, the man is attacked in front of them. Damian clicks his tongue as the corners of Dick’s mouth rise.

* * *

 

Arriving at the Manor, Dick espies Damian in the yard, and the closer he gets, he smiles. 

Dick slants forward, behind him. “Watering the plants?”

Damian sneers at him, but not before he scoffs. “Is it not obvious?”

“You know how to do chores?”

“I know a lot of things.” He smirks, walking away from him, toward the house. 

“Add gardener to your list of expertise. Right beside breaking arms and threatening criminals.”

“Alfred asked me,” he says.

Dick fakes an exclamation of surprise. “He wouldn’t dare.”

“Fine.” Damian turns around. “I offered. He’s a million years older than father. I thought my… assistance would be useful.”

“More than useful. I bet he’ll be _positively delighted_.” 

As Damian scowls, with a “tt,” at the end, Dick stares at him, like he’s a new person he hasn’t seen before, nor met. There was always a sweet, benevolent person behind the years of conditioning and barriers, but still, Damian never would have helped around the house, years ago. He never would have offered. 

Yet, now, he’s standing, a few inches shorter than Dick, on the steps up to the house, holding a watering can, his hair messy from the wind. 

Dick’s heart pumps his blood a little warmer. The temperature causes it to pulse in his chest. 

The sun sets behind him, the smudges of coral and orange reflecting on Damian’s cheekbones, and the greens of his eyes. There’s speckles of brown in them that Dick hasn’t seen before, at least not with the caress of the sky gently painting each contour of his face. 

Dick shakes his head, and the thoughts tumble away with it. He follows Damian inside. 

 

As twilight passes, Dick slumps on the couch, and a few moments later, Damian sits beside him. He flips through the channels and lands on a nature documentary. Regardless of his head resting in his hand as if he’s uninterested, Dick can tell how engorged Damian is in the program, when he only talks to him during commercials. 

Time progresses where Damian doesn’t speak, eyes fastened on the screen. The narrator commences expatiating about birds. In his peripheral, Dick glances at Damian, then back at the television. “You ever think of leaving the nest?”

Damian glares at him for interrupting, as if learning about the bird migratory periods is vital information. “Though the bird metaphor is rather tedious…” He simpers at Dick. His eyes go back to the television. The congregation of birds teaching the fledgings to take off reflects on the screen. “I haven’t,” he says.

The desire his and no one elses, is to stay here, in Gotham, with his father. It was what he wanted years ago, what he wanted growing up, and it’s what he wanted when he met him, and it was completely different than he expected. 

Being Robin is the best decision he’s made. The decision that belongs to him and no one else. 

If he could be Robin forever, he might.

“Father… I wish to stay by his side. As long as he’ll have me.”

“Sometimes you still sound like a kid.” The kid desperate to please his father, and anyone else he could. Desperate for attention. Desperate for affection. Desperate for acceptance. “You’d stay Robin forever?”

The way Dick sees through him, as if he’s pellucid, Damian still finds unnerving. More so than he used to. His ears warm. “Is that stupid?”

“No. Not at all,” he says, and he means it. Damian isn’t him. Robin is so ingrained in Damian, it’s an essential part of himself. It’s the characteristic that taught him how to live, and how to exist― to be a person instead of a weapon, a cause instead of a vessel.

In some ways, it will also always be a part of Dick. It’s how he learned what he wants, and what he doesn’t. It’s how he sustained himself, until he felt deprived, and needed something else to sink his teeth into. 

Maybe one day, Damian will find it, too. 

Interrupting them is Alfred, the cat, not the person, jumping onto the cushions. He goes right for Damian’s lap. He reaches to pet him, and he lingers for a moment, before continuing his trek and laying on Dick’s lap. 

“Traitor,” Damian grumbles, but his hand still follows, to stroke the cat’s head. “We are no longer on speaking terms.”

Dick pets him, too. Their fingers brush, just lightly, and Dick removes his hand before the sensation repeats and he won’t be able to convince himself the tingle it brought was fortuity. “I’m sure he still likes you. He just likes me more.”

“Tt.”

The program ends, and a series of infomercials begins, and Damian flows off the couch, leaning down in front of Dick to steal his cat away. He holds him in front of him, muttering. “Don’t get any ideas. I haven’t yet forgiven you.”

Standing, Dick pets under the animals chin. “You hear that, Alfred? You’re still a traitor.”

Damian props the cat against his chest, staring at down at him. “I hate to agree, but he’s right,” he says.

The grin on Dick’s face grows larger the longer time they spend together. “Well, I should get back. I have work in the morning.”

Damian doesn’t ask why he came, as he doesn’t get the chance to, when Dick leans forward and kisses him on the cheek. Dick’s eyebrows furrow. He wonders why he felt the overwhelming urge to kiss his cheek. He leans down to place a kiss on the cats head, and disappears behind the wall, and from the Manor. 

Damian doesn’t move from his spot. It takes him a while to stop the static forming in his head. He lifts his hand to his cheek, the one Dick kissed, and he still feels the ghost of it, incised into his skin. As he advances up the stairs toward his bedroom, his face becomes hotter and hotter, remembering the smile he gave before the mindless affection, white teeth shining against the lights of the television, and the way his lips warmed his cheeks, like he’ll never again be cold.

* * *

 

A miscalculation on patrol has the offender escaping. 

Damian moved too soon, he knows. Sometimes he can’t help being eager to work off the aggression that lays inside him. 

The alley is empty. Damian searches the area for possible exit strategies. When he attempts to leave, a hand grabs him, shoves him back, and holds him against the brick. 

“Robin,” Dick says. He keeps his forearm over his chest, seizing. 

Damian snarls up at him. “What?”

“What part of do not engage do you not understand?”

“The part where I disagree.”

Dick sighs. “It was your―”

Damian shoves Dick off him, and he allows it, taking a step back. He lifts his hood, shooting his grapple onto a building. “I know that.”

 

Damian disappears during the evening, and Dick gets a trail of the criminal from earlier, and tracks him to a warehouse. 

Robin’s already inside when he arrives, fighting two men much larger than him, but he dodges one of their attacks, knocking him out. 

Dick watches as he’s stabbed through the shoulder. Damian hisses, but grabs his opponents wrist, flips him over, and apprehends him. 

Dick wraps up patrol, and brings Damian to his apartment, sitting him down on the chair in his bedroom. “Off,” he says. 

Damian grumbles, but he lifts the top half of his costume, letting it sink to the floor beside him. 

The knife cut directly through his shoulder. Blood pools, surfacing on the wound, and dripping down his arm. Dick wipes up the crimson, and cleans the wound, starting the suture. 

“You don’t have to prove yourself to me,” Dick says. He’s said it before. He wonders if Damian will ever stop trying, aiming for the most commendation, the greatest outcome. 

“I wasn’t trying to,” he says. “I caught him, didn’t I?” He frowns when Dick doesn’t answer. “It’s what father would’ve done.”

Dick’s hands move across his shoulders. “I want you to come back alive, yeah? I’m not Bruce. I won’t let you die,” _again_ , “for the sake of the mission.”

“I’m not a child. I don’t need to be protected.”

“I know you aren’t,” he says. “I know you don’t.” 

“Then trust _me_ , and that I wouldn’t have been there if I couldn’t have handled it.”

Dick sighs. Trust is an issue that’s always been unstable ground for Damian. Especially after he left. 

Damian speaks again. “I admit… I did… miscalculate the first time.”

“Yeah. You did.” He grins up at him. “But… you’re right. I should trust your judgement. Maybe I’m just used to being alone,” he says. The words are frigid in his mouth. 

Dick completes the stitches on his shoulder, and bandages it, muttering. “Done.”

Damian nods and stands, as Dick tosses him clothes to change into, turning away from him to put away the medical equipment. 

He goes to the bathroom and changes, unlacing his boots and removing his remaining clothing. He dresses in Dick’s sweatshirt, and a pair of pants that hardly fits, and his… groin feels a little weird knowing that Dick is larger than him. 

He folds his patrol uniform and absentmindedly lifts the sweatshirt to his nose and inhales, and when he does, he drops it, offended. 

He likes it way too much, but doesn’t like having the knowledge that he’s partial to Dick’s smell. Enough to― 

_I won’t let you die._

Flushing, he clicks his tongue at himself. It was a mindless statement. It shouldn’t cause him to react like this.

Returning to Dick’s room, he finds him already changed and sitting on the bed, waiting for him. “You can sleep on the bed.” 

Damian scoffs. “You want me to sleep, where I can only assume your previous dalliances have―”

“Previous dalliances?” Dick chortles. “None of those where you’re concerned.” He pulls back the sheets, crawling inside, sending a lazy grin Damian’s way that has his stomach fluttering at the possibility of laying so close.

Dick continues speaking. “I promise, no dalliances. Not even one. And I just cleaned the sheets.”

Against Damian’s judgment, he crawls in beside him, but he lays as far away from Dick as he can muster. 

 

Damian’s skin is searing when he wakes up. The sensations around him process through his mind, and he groans, the temperature of the room increasing. 

Dick’s hand shoved up his sweatshirt. It’s resting mindlessly against his chest. His nose is ghosting his nape, and his ankle is tangled with his. 

Damian stabs his leg backwards, hitting Dick in the shin. 

A muffled _ow_ from behind him makes Damian snicker. But the hand under his clothes distracts him. “Richard.”

Dick kicks his leg back. “What was that for?” he slurs, sleep in his voice. 

“You’re…” Damian’s face heats. The only positive in this situation is the angle of his face, away from Dick. “You’ve been… fondling me in your sleep.”

“Huh?” Dick tries to lift his arm, but it’s restricted beneath the material. “My bad.” He slams himself back on the mattress, removing his arm from under his shirt. Damian swears he’s doing it slowly, when each shift of his arm, lower and lower over his bare abdomen as Dick removes it, leaves him tingling. 

Dick leaves the arm over him, but keeps it above his clothing.

“Richard.”

“What now?”

“Must you… touch me?”

“Must you kick me to wake me up?” He mumbles, his face nuzzling the pillow as he pulls him closer. “You’re really warm…”

“I’m not a…” Damian’s voice cuts off when Dick’s body curls with his. His chest to his back, his crotch up against his―

“I’m some harlot you brought home last night,” he snarls, trying to shove him off. The embarrassed exclamation has him jealous, though he _knows_ he shouldn’t be. 

Dick’s eyes shoot open. He starts to laugh before he can stop it. “Harlot? I haven’t heard you use that word since you were like… ten.”

“You’re… You’re…”

Dick pushes onto his elbows and hovers over Damian. “Oh my god.” He feigns a gasp. “Damian Wayne, are you embarrassed?”

Damian only reddens deeper, to the point he looks like he's on fire. “I hate you so much,” he growls. He pushes Dick off him and turns farther away from him.

“Aw it’s ok… I won’t do it again if it makes you so _embarrassed_ ,” he jeers, continuing to tease. “Or are you just not a fan of the position? Do you want to be the big spoon?”

“I might just break my no kill streak and cut off your tongue for you to choke on it.”

Dick sniggers. “Scary…” He rolls over, back facing Damian’s. “I’m going back to sleep. Promise not to kill me?”

Damian sneers at him. “I guess you’ll find out, won’t you?”

Despite the peril, Dick smiles into his dreams.

* * *

 

There’s a gala at the Manor a couple days later. Dick normally comes to keep up appearances, but Damian, this time, is aware he's going to attend. He spends a little extra time getting ready, smoothing out his suit once, or three times, and wearing his finest cologne. 

He tells himself it’s not because Dick is coming. 

He doesn’t see Dick for hours after the evening starts, and though Damian comprehends just how wondrous Dick looks, he doesn’t quite grasp it until Dick smiles, running into him in the hallway. 

“You’re very skilled at pretending you don’t want to maim everyone in there.”

“You haven’t considered it?”

“More times than I can count.” Dick smiles. “Bruce Wayne’s biological son sure gets a lot of attention.”

“And you?” He sneers. “Everyone’s so infatuated with…” Damian hums, snickering. “The charming Dick Grayson.”

“I don’t exactly care for their attention,” he says. “I’m merely a practiced performer.”

There’s less oxygen between them than there should be. Less space. “Whose attention do you care for?”

Dick leans in, placing his palm against his throat, slowly dragging it down. Damian freezes, helpless against Dick’s movements, and his touch. 

Dick withdraws his hand, and it slides up his tie, adjusting it. “Your tie was loose.”

He recedes down the hall, returning to the party.

Damian spends the rest of the night imagining what his answer could've been. Imagining his name was lingering in Dick’s mouth.

* * *

 

The timing was wrong. That’s what Dick would tell himself, when his past relationships would fail and wither.

With Damian, the timing has been felicitous. He showed up just weeks before Bruce’s false death, pugnacious and lost, with claims about his heritage, and conjectures conditioned into him. Their partnership was a case of timing, and one Dick is grateful for; forming a bond with the kid that didn't know how to connect. 

Bruce returned, and the cowl to who it belonged to, and Damian to his father. There were complications; Bruce’s lack of trust in Damian and the obligation Dick felt for Damian that had adapted into a mutual respect and fondness. 

He thought to stay, and did for a while. But, when Damian died, too small and sanguinary, Dick had to leave. He couldn’t walk through the Manor’s halls, or look at Batman, without remembering the days when Damian was on his side, scowling and gradually opening up, sharing parts of himself he wouldn’t have been able to prior. 

When Damian was revived, the thrill and fright of it all dredged up his old feelings of regret; failing the kid who had given up his other family to follow his father, but he got him instead― a stranger wearing the mantle; the ghost of a man. 

Dick couldn’t decide; he supposed he should have thought himself as Damian’s father, or his brother, but mostly his mentor; yet, he didn’t see him as that― the only word that came to mind when he dissected it was partner. Damian was his partner, the one he chose and cherished, but more than that― more than anything, Damian was his friend.

There was so much culpability inside him, both that he had failed Damian, and lost him in the process. Damian, who had been misled and let down by so many others. And Dick didn’t want to be another name on the list. 

Soon after, he departed from Gotham, and made a name for himself in Bludhaven as Nightwing, which was lighter, and uncomplicated, and after all that happened, it’s what he needed. 

Though, sometimes, he wondered, spending nights alone, perusal without a partner, what would have happened if Damian had stayed with him, or he had stayed with Damian, or if Bruce never returned at all. But, he knew it was necessary to give them space, and for himself to learn who he is again, and what he wanted aside from Batman; the shadow he had been trying to escape for years. 

Time passed in a blur of investigations and solitude. There was a bit of unobtrusive annoyance, when he saw Damian and Bruce on patrol during his infrequent visits. The regret was still inside him, more that he had left, and wasn’t able to stay, though he hoped he could have. 

Regardless of everything, demise and abandon, Damian greeted him with the same demeanor he always had. Dick sometimes caught a tinge of bitter, or a tinge of disappointment from him, but it always drifted away as the night went on. 

Months ago, he remembers seeing Damian, and realizing how much he’s grown, his fighting style reigned in but stronger, and his insults a little less often. But mostly, he had people he trusted, more than just him, and Dick could only describe it as elation, that Damian had all the chances he hoped he would, and that he was able to grow up at all, when for some time, Dick doubted he’d get the chance to. 

Then, there was the case, the drug ring him and Damian took down. He and Damian had always had a fluidity to their fighting, and their conversation, but in absence, it somehow only increased. 

And Dick wanted to dig his fingers into the moment and glue himself there. 

Once, Dick had told Damian, his only expectations of him were to try, and to keep trying despite his enmity. Damian had so many expectations then; of Gotham, and Batman, all from stories he was told. But, he never forced those on Dick. He told him he was unworthy, and undeserving of the title, and his respect was to be earned. 

It was refreshing. The standards everyone has for Dick are often suffocatingly high, and working his way from the bottom was a better alternative than slowly falling lower and lower until Damian hated him for good. 

And Damian absorbed it all. The times he saved him and helped him. The times he tried, too, and never stopped, either. 

One of his favorite things about Damian is he soaks up what Dick gives him and takes him for what he is. He doesn’t force him to change or want him to. He esteems him despite his faults, and his mistakes, and the regret Dick still occasionally feels when he looks over and realizes he missed him, and missed a lot. 

Dick doesn’t have to feign, or pretend, with Damian. Whenever he tried to then, and whenever he does now, he can taste the contempt in the air from Damian’s direction, and it makes him never want to again. 

Something about Damian just fits with him, in a way that makes him not want to find an excuse not to be around him, or to leave, or to push him away like he usually does when it gets too intense. 

It’s always been intense with Damian. He’s one of the most intense people he’s ever met. There’s no part of him he could be repelled by. 

In fact, he can’t stay away. 

The week following the Gala he doesn’t see him, except during one patrol in the evening, where they speak of the case and not much else. Work is busy, and he hasn’t had time to stop by the Manor, which now has become more of a habit. 

But more than that, he wants, pure and potently, to spend time around Damian. His thoughts drift to him, what he’s doing, what he’s thinking, the cute way his eyes twinkle, and his nose crinkles when Dick tells a joke he thinks isn’t funny. 

And Damian’s question has been ringing in his head. _Whose attention do you care for?_

Dick thinks it should be obvious. But despite his endeavor, Damian’s never mastered how to react to being cared for, and how to accept affection and attention without restrictions and capriciousness.

Alfred welcomes him, and they make small talk, but Dick goes right to Damian's room and knocks. A subdued sound of approval comes through the door, and Dick enters, shutting it back behind him. 

Damian’s resting against the headboard, sketchbook in his lap, his dog curled up on the corner of the bed.

“Hey.”

He sits up, shutting his sketchbook and laying it beside him. “Hello,” he says, and it’s a bit awkward, but Dick loves the simple greeting, undeniably so. 

He asks to sit and Damian nods. “What’re you doing?”

Raising an eyebrow, Damian gestures to the book on the bed. Dick glares at him, and Damian meets the glare with far more intensity. 

“Can I see?” Dick asks.

“I suppose.” He opens the sketchbook, and turns it in his direction. There’s a sketch of his cat, on the floor, and the rest of the page is filled with sketches of the dog, details on his gray fur, and his one ear that is higher than the other. 

“Cute,” he mumbles, without thinking.

“I don’t wish for my art to be _cute_.”

Slightly embarrassed at his thoughtless utter, Dick somehow says something more unbecoming. “You’re the one that’s cute.”

Dick doesn’t know where it came from, but once it’s out, he feels like a kid, with a crush, the way his cheeks feel a bit warmer. He tries to salvage it, using his practiced charm, of a performer ready for any direction he’s given. “It’s cute… the way you like them enough to draw them.” 

“Titus is getting old,” he responds, though Dick swears he’s a bit pink around the nose. “And it’s anatomy practice.”

“He is gray… just like Bruce.” He sniggers, and Damian does a bit, too. “I’m not graying, am I?”

“Self conscious about your age, Richard?” Damian takes back the sketchbook and places it where it previously was. “I don’t think you’re _that_ old.”

“Old is a state of mind.” Dick reclines on the bed. “I’ll be young forever.”

“It must help that you are a child in almost every way but physically.”

“Maybe you could learn a bit from me. You are _only_ eighteen, you know."

Not liking being referred to as young, especially not by Dick, especially not after these new, undistinguishable feelings, Damian bites back. “I’m almost nineteen.”

“And I’m almost thirty.” Dick slides off the bed, going to the pile of books on the shelf near the wall, searching through the titles. He grabs a book in German, and leans back against the shelf, leering at Damian. 

“Willing to spend time with a geezer like me?” Dick asks.

As he approaches the bed and sits, Damian teases him, the expression on his face leaning toward soft.

“What’s one more?”

 

The subsequent hours, Dick spends reading on the bed beside Damian, until his eyes grow heavy and he falls asleep curled up on his side, the book between his forearms. 

The sun bleeds through the window, warming the room, and brightening it. It hits Dick’s outline in a way that’s divine, and Damian’s eyes trace each and every curve of his body, and his face, as his pencil does the same. It’s peaceful, the lull, and the sound of Titus breathing, and Dick, their chests moving while Damian sketches Dick; his afflatus. 

Damian concludes drawing him alone, then with the dog, then working his way through another picture of him. 

Dick stirs, cradling the book. He feels the hard surface and peeks an eye open to see what it is. Damian stifles a snicker at the expression on his face as he groggily sits up. Rubbing his eyes, he queries. “Still at it?”

Dubiously, Damian responds. “Yes…”

In no way dissuaded by his tone, Dick snatches the book from his hands, ignoring the threat and insult it elicits. 

Seeing the page of him, the immense detail, and devotion he has taken, as well as the implication Damian watched him, inspired enough to draw his image, Dick can only smile in what he imagines is a saccharine, enamored way. 

“Wow,” he says, losing his voice. His eyes flicker to Damian, annoyed, his body language uncomfortable. “These are amazing.” He bites his lower lip and playfully jibes. “Am I really that pretty?”

Damian looks down at the sketches, checking to see if he really made Dick look that pretty, or if it was just because there is no other way to draw him, if he wanted to be accurate. He looks back up at Dick. “I happen to think Titus is the better looking of the two.”

Chuckling, Dick lays back on the bed, on his side. “How about a nude?”

The quip has him swallowing, forcing down the answer he wants to say but would not allow himself to ever become exposed enough to. The idea of Dick, naked, Damian allowed to spend hours looking at him, memorizing every scar, every muscle, and translating it in a way only he can― 

Pink faced, he takes back the sketchbook, shoving his hand into Dick’s face, and trying to push him off the bed. 

“You wish.” 

And perhaps he does.

Dick steals the novel from Damian’s room, and each time he reads it the next week, he smiles, remembering where it’s from.

* * *

 

Dick patrols with Damian a couple times, but a few weeks elapse where Batman and Robin are solely together, and Dick focuses on Bludhaven. He even gets a couple good nights of sleep, which is a serendipity he revels in.

 

The window leading into Dick’s apartment is unlocked. Damian clicks his tongue. He pushes it open, and slips through the cracks, keeping his footsteps light and quiet. 

Settling in front of the bed, he stares down at Dick, then roughly lands on top of him, straddling his chest, his hand flat, adjacent to his trachea. 

Dick reacts swiftly, rolling him over, grabbing his wrists and pinning them down. 

“What―” Squinting, he cuts himself off when he recognizes the body below him. “Damian? Why?”

“Your reaction time is adequate.” Involuntarily, his breath hitches, as Damian concentrates on any other detail in the room except their position on the bed; Dick looming over him, his arms pinned down, his legs forced on either side of Dick’s body. “But you should consider locking your window. Someone dangerous could break in.”

“I think you’re the most dangerous person to try.” He lets go of Damian and lays back down beside him. “And if I had locked it, I wouldn’t get to welcome such an exciting visitor at,” he squints at the clock, “2:57 am."

They lay on their backs, staring at the ceiling. It’s silent as they come down from their brief adrenaline, hearts thumping in their chests.

“Can I sleep here?” Damian asks.

“You know you can.” 

In the same instance Dick peels back the sheet on his side, Damian’s shifting to lay beneath it. 

 

A bilious feeling tears at his body, as Dick falls, deeper, and deeper, his stomach sinking as he dives into the waiting chasm. 

A cluster of people congregate before him, as he lands on the ground, violent enough to burn, but he doesn’t feel anything. Not in his body. Not from his body. 

From the words. 

They’re disappointed in him. Every person he comes in contact with. Their faces melting, and turning, and dripping down, skin to blood, flesh to dirt. He can’t hear the voices, but he can feel them. They tell him of his solitary. 

His eyes go to the ground, but he doesn’t want them to. He wants to look up. He wants to see their faces. Faces he hasn’t seen in years. 

When his gaze goes back to the blackness, it’s empty. A hollow place where people once were, before he ignored them, and shoved them away, and left without a reason. 

He’s alone. 

Alone. 

The vacuity devours him. 

Panting, Dick jolts up on the bed, sweat that’s a sick combination of ice and fire sticking to his skin, and stapling his shirt there. 

It’s too confining. He can’t breathe around the fabric. Frantically, he rips off his shirt and throws it away from him. His breaths shorten, and he breathes in. Inhale. Exhale. 

He places his face in his palm, his other hand twisting around the sheets, so he can touch something real, something tangible. It was just a dream. A nightmare. He’s had hundreds before. Worse ones. 

A hand around his diverts his attention. Damian’s fingers squeeze around his. “Richard.”

“Fuck.” He exhales, running his free hand through his hair. Dick squeezes his fingers, curling them around Damian’s hard enough to elicit pain. Damian doesn’t comment, or complain. 

Beside him, Damian sits up, level to him. “What happened?” he whispers, so gentle Dick has to look at his silhouette in the dark to confirm it’s really him who spoke. 

“Just a dream,” Dick says, his voice rough. It comes out as a croak. 

“It’s never just a dream,” Damian says, with the same, uncharacteristic voice. His thumb brushes across Dick’s knuckles. “You told me that.”

“I don’t want you to leave.” Dick sighs, a tight panic still in his chest. 

“I’m not leaving.”

“I―” Dick curses, turning on the bed to face Damian. “I don’t want to leave again.” 

“Then don’t,” Damian says. As the words enter his ears, with Damian’s voice laced around them, Dick thinks maybe it is that simple. Maybe, that’s all it’s ever been. “When I was younger… you said no matter what… not my father, or my mother… that my choices were mine, and no one could change that. What I wanted to do, and who I wanted to be, I could decide. So… if you don’t want to leave, _don’t_.”

“My words really had an impact, then?” Dick lifts their connected hands, adjusting the grip and lowering them back to the bed. “I have a lot of regrets. But I don’t want to. Not with this,” he says. Dick swallows around whatever part of himself is trying to stop his next words. “Not with us.”

Damian smirks. “Then don’t.”

Hoarsely, Dick laughs, and there’s a smaller one behind his, one he hasn’t before heard, and wants to play on repeat, like a song he’s fixated on. He revels in these distinct, secret moments only Damian can give him― and Dick's the one he's chosen to share himself with. 

“I won’t.” The expression on his face softens, as he stares ahead of him, Damian’s face reflecting in a similar tone. His eyes flicker down his features, his eyebrows, unfurrowed, the curl of his eyelashes, long and thick, his nose, still dainty and slightly curved upwards, and his lips, rounded and parted in a breath. Dick almost leans forward, just to see how the shape feels against his mouth. He forces his gaze to his throat, and it brings a worse thought pattern. Their eyes converge again, and in Damian’s is a bit of a question. 

Fondness, and a stronger, more confidential emotion Dick doesn’t want to admit has him beginning to ask a question. “When did you get so…” Dick’s voice drifts away. He cannot decide how to end the query. 

Damian thinks to say _since I met you_ , but he doesn’t. He learned a lot watching Dick for years, silent admiration as he came around, and the louder kind when he was too young to care about anything that came out of his mouth. Everything Dick told him when he was young, and his Batman, Damian secured and locked in his mind, keeping it safe there, never to escape.

But, Damian determines Dick doesn’t need more of an ego. “When you were away, being an ass.”

Dick huffs, letting go of his hand to lay back on the bed. Damian does the same, and they lay side by side, facing one another. 

Damian rests his head in his palm, his other loosely balled in front of his face. “I was mad at you.” The hand closer to him clenches, and the darkened room doesn’t do much against the scorch of his eyes. “I didn’t want to be alone, either.”

Dick watches his hand relax, clench again, then slacken a second time. “You weren’t alone. You had Bruce, and Alfred, and―”

“None of them were you,” he says. “Not my partner. My… my friend.”

“Friend? I’m honored to be so esteemed.” 

“Shut up,” he says, but there’s a smile, light on his face. “You were… and my… favorite.”

Dick runs his hand up Damian’s forearm. The tips of his fingers dust against his skin. His fingers prickle against Damian’s arm. 

“Were? Am I not your friend anymore?” Dick asks, jesting. The word friend hardly describes them, and family feels like the wrong designation, too. 

Once the question is out, Dick realizes he doesn’t have a name for the sensation in his chest when he looks at Damian, and what exactly he feels, knowing the way Damian’s hand fits around his.

“We’ll see,” Damian mumbles. “Perhaps…”

“Perhaps,” Dick finishes. Leaving it hovering in the air feels wrong, but whatever word either of them could add is too heavy to speak aloud. 

“I’m tired of isolating myself,” Dick says. “With you…” He caresses his arm up to his shoulder. He can feel the bandages beneath his sweatshirt, the wound still healing. “Being lonely… I forget how it feels.”

Grumbling, Damian shoves his head into his chest, the warmth of his skin against his forehead. He murmurs against his sternum. “You’re embarrassing.”

“Yeah,” he says, his lips turning upwards, faintly. His arms tighten around Damian, cradling him against his body. He holds him in his arms like he’ll never let go. He doesn’t want to. “Maybe I am.”

The kiss Damian places over his beating heart, Dick doesn’t speak on, and the damp trails falling into his hair, Damian doesn’t say anything of, either.

* * *

 

In the morning, Dick drives him back to the manor, and kisses his cheek before leaning over his seat to open his door and let him out. 

Entering the house, he shuts the door as he listens to Dick drive away, making his way to the kitchen. His father is seated at the table, cup of coffee in hand, an untouched plate before him. 

“Father… may we speak?”

Through his cup, Bruce makes a noise of approval. Damian sits. “Last night… I’m sorry for going against your instructions.” Damian holds back the snigger in his chest. “And… sorry for calling you old.”

“I hardly think I’m old,” he grumbles.

“I was… worried. The reason I disobeyed an order last night is because… you were slower than normal. I had doubts about your plan of action based on my assessment.”

A small amused sound comes from him. “You are assessing me now.”

“You don’t sleep… and you sometimes forget to eat. Alfred always told me I needed to rest… or I’d stunt my growth.”

“He said the same to me.”

“I think… it’s not the worst advice he’s given. An injury from a slow reaction could incapacitate you, and that would have you out for longer than a few nights off every week.”

“You’ve been spending too much time with Dick.”

“I agree with him. Doing what we can and killing yourself is not synonymous.” He meets his fathers eyes, burning at him. The lingering dread of the child, scared and wanting a father in the greens. “I won’t forgive you if you die.”

Bruce sighs. Then, another. Then, he takes a sip of his coffee. “Ok," he says, like a grunt. “A couple nights of rest a week wouldn’t be the worst thing.”

“And Gotham will be fine in your absence.” Standing up, Damian smirks. “Besides… I never said _Robin_ had to take time off.”

Before he can exit, his father says his name, his voice brimming with concern. “What’s going on with you and Dick?”

“Me and Richard?” His eyes widen, then he squints, and his blood runs cold, then heats his cheeks and the back of his neck. He feels stuck between the table and the chair, and decides to sit back down. “Maybe I was wrong. Are you becoming senile?”

“I see the looks. Though you tend to forget, I am a detective.”

Damian crosses his arms, resisting the childish urge emerging from his abash to roughly push away his chair and hide in his room. “Nothing is going on.”

“I am concerned you may not be―”

At this, Damian does stand up again, hastily, his chair almost knocking over. “Nothing is going on, father.”

“Damian,” he says, in his Batman voice, and Damian hates the way it makes him freeze, and listen. “Do you…” His father looks more uncomfortable than he’s ever seen him. “If you are thinking of getting involved with Dick…”

Averting his gaze, he admits it, for the first time. “I like him.” His face blooms as he says it. “But it doesn’t _mean_ ―” 

“Does he feel the same?”

“How would I know?” he sneers, frustrated by Dick’s voice, and his smell, and his touch, and the thoughts he keeps having late at night in his room. Thoughts he’s never before indulged in. Now, he can hardly keep his hands off himself. 

In comparison, and chagrin, Damian’s next words are a whisper. “If he does… is that… acceptable?”

“If I said no, would that stop you?”

“Is it a no?”

The edge of Bruce's mouth twitches, in his semblance of a smile. Damian’s never shown interest in another person, romantic or otherwise. Though Bruce considers both Dick and Damian his sons, they’ve never been brothers, not in the traditional way, and he doesn’t expect them to be.

His only true concern is Dick’s series of past failed relationships, and Damian’s impassioned loyalty. It’s a situation he’d like to avoid, but the look in his sons eyes urges another response. 

“It’s your choice _and_ his if either of you decide to pursue this further,” he says. It’s as close to acceptance as he’ll get. 

Damian smiles, a bright one his father has seldom experienced. Bruce allows himself to do the same only after Damian leaves the table.

* * *

 

The night is slow in Gotham, nothing but a mugging and a potential break in that was stopped before it started. 

“It’s cold tonight,” Dick says. Their feet hand over the side of the building, watching the city lights below, and the stars twinkling above, some peeking out through the fog of the city. 

“It’s almost fall.”

“I guess so…” Dick’s slides his hand closer to Damian's until their pinkies nudge, green intersecting with black and blue. “How are things with Batman? You were working together almost every night for a while, and now… you’re here with me instead.”

Damian’s pinky nudges his a little more. “I convinced him to… get some sleep… every so often.”

“No way.” Behind his mask, his face shocks, but it softens into blithe. If any one could convince Batman, it would be Damian. “You think he knows how anymore?”

“I doubt it.”

“What about you? Going to take a break _every so often_?”

“No need. I am in ideal condition.” 

The first thought in Dick’s mind is _yes you are_. “At least you know how to sleep.”

The spot their fingers touch starts to burn at the utterance. Damian has been sleeping more since him and Dick have been doing… whatever they’re doing. “I… definitely sleep better than I used to."

“So do I. But mostly…” Damian faces him, eyes meeting behind the masks. Dick tilts toward him. “I sleep best with someone.”

Dick leans in. Closer and closer. He can feel Damian breathing against his mouth. 

“Someone?” he asks. His exhale combines with Dick’s.

Dick’s voice is rough and low, almost a whisper. “Someone specific. And very special…” 

His pinky wraps around Damian’s, the appendages coiling together. 

Before they touch, a gun resounds blocks away. At the noise, they jolt away from each other. Dick hurries to stand, and Damian stands beside him. The grapple snaps in place, and he aims. 

Damian doesn’t let him jump. He leans up, gloved fingers sinking into his hair, yanking him closer. He kisses him. 

Dick barely has a chance to react. The kiss is sweet, and short enough to keep it that way. 

Damian tilts away, flushed, sucking on his lower lip, tasting the phantom. Turning away, he slides his hood up. “You were always too slow, _Nightwing_.”

It falls to his shoulders as Dick tugs him back by the material, Damian spinning around with it, eyebrows furrowed. His thumbs slip into the fabric as he slants down to kiss him again. He smiles away from the kiss, fingers running up the periphery of his cape as he pulls it back up. “And you were always too impatient, _Robin_.”

Damian swings off the building before Dick gets the chance, but Dick’s jumping the instant he does, a parallel beam on his face.

* * *

 

Batman summons Nightwing on patrol, and concerning recent events, it’s unnerving. The night passes with pent up panic on Dick’s side, waiting for the inevitable conversation, or the impending severity. 

There’s a different smoothness to their dynamic, from years of knowing each other and working together. They speak only about the case, and a few jokes Dick can’t resist, that Bruce only grunts faintly at. 

Driving to the position they’ve tracked, the car roaring is the sole sound in the space. Dick swears he’s a teenager again, waiting to be punished or sent home early for disobeying an order. 

A couple minutes go by, then a couple more, and Bruce speaks, stern and terse, with nothing but a statement. 

“He’s young, Dick.”

Dick sighs and runs a hand back through his hair. “Believe me, I know.”

Bruce makes a noise he can’t quite read. “You have been away.” He turns to him, aggressive in his expression, even beneath the cowl. “I haven’t seen him like anyone before.”

There’s a sinking sensation in Dick’s stomach. It’s also a flutter. “If he’s anything like you, he probably didn’t feel the need to share.”

“I would know,” he says. “He’s changed. Matured. But he is still young.”

“I know how young he is. Whatever happens…” Bruce frowns. “Or doesn’t… It’s up to him.”

“He devotes himself to everything he does. I assume _this_ will be no different. If you do not―”

Dick cuts him off. “I do.” He takes a deep breath, and with it, a weight from deep inside him escapes. “I care about him more than I’ve ever cared about anyone.”

The car hauls to a stop, and Bruce places his hand along his temple. “If either of you became compromised… it would negatively affect the mission.”

“Wait…” Dick can’t help snickering. “Is this your emotionally constipated way of saying you want neither of us to get hurt?”

The silence that fills the vehicle before they both exit is an answer in itself.

* * *

 

Him and Bruce don’t return to the cave until the sun is out. Dick showers and changes, and plods up the stairs to the house. 

On the way to his room, he finds Damian in the hall, making his way to his own bedroom. Narrowed eyes, he turns around at Dick’s footsteps. 

“Here again?” Damian crosses his arms. He hasn’t seen Dick since they kissed. It feels as if he has been unmasked; a raw part of himself bare in front of Dick. 

“Batman had me up on patrol all night.” He raises an eyebrow at Damian. “I’m going to take a nap. Wanna come?”

Damian stares at Dick, his eyes traveling down his arms, and if he’s honest, he can’t think of anything better than lying down with them wrapped around him― as Dick always insists on doing. 

He agrees. 

 

Damian’s been in Dick’s room less times than he can count, and he takes it all in, trying to memorize it. The door shuts behind him, and Damian’s eyes flicker over the wall, the _Flying Grayon’s_ poster, the position of the bed, the window. He stares at it all as if by immersing himself he’ll learn more about Dick; his childhood with his father, and what he thought about when he stared at these walls, and if the room always felt a little mystifying like his does. 

The mattress dips as he lays beside Dick, on his back. Dick places his arm around his waist, and his face pushes up against his shoulder. 

“Did father ask about me?” 

A drowsy laugh comes from Dick. Damian can feel the vibration of it against his shoulder. He bites his lower lip. 

“Yes. He wanted to make sure his Robin was being treated with the utmost respect and reciprocation.”

Damian shuts his eyes, listening as Dick fades into sleep as soon as the words are out, laying over him like it’s the most comfortable spot in the world. He can smell the distinct soap from the cave showers, and he likes the way it smells on Dick more than himself, or anyone else. 

Dick’s arm over him, heavy and strong, the weight of it reminding him he’s allowed here, wanted here, given permission to be― Damian drifts into unconsciousness, too. 

 

On his stomach, one of his legs bent and spread beside him, Damian wakes up throbbing. Dazed and disoriented, he shifts a little, then a little more, until he’s so hard it aches. 

He never thought about sex too much. Only fleeting thoughts when his body changed, and a few times when he reacted to something he read or watched on television. 

Ever since the kiss on the cheek those weeks ago, and the one on the mouth, nights before on patrol, he can’t stop thinking about it. Not just the act―but Dick. He’s not interested unless it’s with him. 

Everything about Dick drives him crazy. The way he phrases his words, the way he thinks, the way he fights and cares, as intense as he does. He could melt just from the contact, the lingering touches, the sound of his voice, his presence near him. 

He nudges his head into the bed. It smells like Dick; an overwhelming scent. Body heavy, laced with sleep, his mind is too slow to correlate what that means. 

His hips roll forward. He digs his fingers into the sheets, rubbing his body lazily into the mattress. 

He needs― _needs_ ―

He flips over on the bed, searching for more stimulation. His hand sinks into the fabric again, and he whimpers. 

He shifts a little rougher, squirming. His leg bumps against something.

His eyes shoot open. Dick is in front of him, wide eyed as him, flushed as he is. Discomfit, Damian curses in his native tongue. 

Dick can hardly be annoyed being woken up, especially to the image. “You were making this noise…” is all he says. _An incredible noise._

Damian’s face burns. He has never felt hotter in his life; never more embarrassed, nor more aroused. He places his hand over his mouth, as if he can erase the noise Dick speaks of. “I’m…” He groans. “I’m sorry. Sorry… I didn’t…” He clenches his eyes shut. “I forgot where I was. I… I apologize for making you uncomfortable.”

“Trust me, I’m not uncomfortable. At least not in the way you’re thinking.”

“What?” he asks, breathy. 

Dick exhales, and inhales just as quick. “I’m saying…” Reaching across the bed, he grabs Damian’s hand, and leads it down between his legs. Damian’s hand goes limp, and Dick curls it around himself, ensuring Damian can _feel_ him. 

Instantly, Damian’s fingers curl around his hardening cock, fingers tight around the shape. Dick keeps his hand there, wiggling his hips ever so slightly. “Do you understand?” Dick asks, meeting his eyes. 

Damian gasps. The patches of honeyed brown in his irises twinkle, and burn, the feeling adhering with Dick’s own eyes, stapled on his. 

His hand moves, squeezing him, aquatinting himself with the size, and the sensation, and the way Dick’s body faintly trembles. 

Dick grabs his hand, grasping his fingers tight, urging him to stop. With a tiny, eager sound, bordering on disappointment, he does. Dick shuts his eyes, shutting out the side of his brain desperate for this, desperate for Damian in a way he never imagined he'd be. 

Dick removes his hand, laying Damian’s back on the bed in its original spot. “Can I ask you something?”

Damian answers right away. “Yes.”

“Have you ever done this…? Is this your first time?"

Damian’s fist twists in the bed, nodding as an answer, hoping it’s not a deterrent. 

Dick only sighs. “Ok… Another, then,” he says. “Do you touch yourself?” 

“Do you always ask this?” he jeers.

“No. You’re not like anyone I’ve ever been with. And…this is much more than sex.” Dick places his hand on his cheek, stroking his hair with his fingers, his thumb brushing over his cheekbone. “I want to be with you. In this way… and a lot of other ways.” His fingers bury in his hair, and he twists them, tilting his head closer to him. “But I want to know what you have done. What _you_ want to do.” Dick lets go of his head, resting his hand on the bed in front of Damian’s.

“ _Obviously_ I touch myself,” he scoffs. 

“You do?” Dick sees through his facade, but he asks a question instead of commenting on it. “What do you think about?” 

His fingers brush Damian’s. The touch pries the confession out of his mouth. “I never… I didn’t think about it much… before. But now… ever since…” He exhales. “I think about you.”

Dick clenches his eyes shut, his cock throbbing at the answer; filthy, yet exceedingly genuine. Damian nudges the bed, and Dick watches his hips arch, as his wrist shifts, squeezing Dick’s fingers. “When you touch me… I never want it to stop,” Damian says.

Dick slips his fingers in the place between Damian’s. He leans sideways, whispering into his ear, watching as he shudders. “Will you show me?” 

Gasping, Damian stutters. “H…How?”

“Show me what you do when you’re alone.” He lowers his voice, growling into his ear. “When you think of _me_ …”

Damian surprises himself how fast he rolls over onto his back, both his hands going to his waistband. He doesn’t think, just moves, unbuttoning his jeans. He slides them down his legs, slowly, and Dick watches the protraction, engrossing himself as his thighs come into view, then his calves, dark and toned. 

Damian grips himself around his briefs, pressing against his bulge, moving up and down. He’s loud without meaning to be, exhilarated and ardent. He’s never done this before. He’s never done anything like it. He never thought he would. But Dick…

Damian grasps himself, turning to meet Dick’s eyes. “You…” He sucks on his lower lip, eyes traveling down his body, then back to his face. “I want to see you. I want to _watch_ you.”

The way it’s spoken, so ensured, Dick hauls off his shirt, and removes his pants and underwear in a fluid motion, aggressively yanking them away. 

Damian’s eyes go straight to his naked form. He stares at the scars on his chest, his gaze following the train of hair down his abdomen. 

Damian can’t hold down the noise when he sees his cock. Thick. Curved. _His_. 

Dick’s hand is already around himself, and Damian shoves down his briefs, grasping himself as soon as he can, gliding down the foreskin, leaking down onto his fingertips. 

Dick grunts beside him, engulfed in the moment, memorizing the neatly trimmed hair, and the way his legs quiver.

Almost apprehensively, Damian moves his hand up and down his cock, spreading his legs, making tiny, fragmented whines as his hips jerk impatiently toward his fist. His head lolls sideways, his gaze going to Dick’s hand, working himself. He sinks his fingers into the bed beside his hair, moaning at Dick’s slow, practiced grip, his hips still, calm in a way Damian can’t be with the new, unfamiliar territory. 

He stops his hips, gluing them to the bed, watching Dick’s hand move, with desperate sounds, and fingers more desperate, as he tries to copy Dick’s smooth, sangfroid movements. Encircling the head, he glides his thumb over the building dampness, massaging back down over his shaft. 

At the endearing emulation, Dick’s grasp around himself speeds up. He curses and groans out a request, the rough component of his voice framing it as an order. “Come here.”

Damian does, letting go of himself to crawl over Dick, ensconcing himself on his thigh. Dick’s hands trail up the lines of his body, golden, lissome thighs on either side of his, the curve of his ass, the arch of his back, to the smooth, soft skin of his waist. He lifts his shirt as he goes, wanting to see each distinct scar, and commit the lighter skin to memory. His shirt falls back down as Dick's hands curl thinnest part of his waist, as if made to fit. His thumbs trace the firm ridges of his muscles, lower and lower until hands grab his hips and tilt them forward, so he can feel the heat of him over his thigh. 

Damian’s hand wraps around his bicep, the strength under his fingertips triggering an indigent sound. Dick squeezes him harder, feeling the jut of his hipbones, caressing them gently, lifting his leg to rub his thigh against his balls and the underside of his cock. He grabs Damian’s hand, keeping his eyes on his. He places a kiss on his palm, and another, then whispers against it, his eyes glinting up. 

“Keep going.” Another kiss. “Make yourself cum.” _For me_ , he doesn’t say. _On me_ , he doesn’t say either, but the way Damian reclaims his hand, avidly wrapping around his cock, Dick thinks he heard it anyway. It’s precisely the way they sync together, deciphering actions without words. 

Dick follows, though all the stimulation he swears he needs is Damian's warmth spread over his body as he wrenches his hand, humping up against his leg, using it as leverage. Dick keeps his hand on his hip, and Damian keeps his free hand around his arm, their eyes fixed on each other, irises cemented together. The same fire from Damian's eyes mirrors in the contrasting light and dark blues of Dick’s. 

Damian’s body builds with pressure, tensing as his lips part, a heavenly sound coming out of the sundered rose. Hand speeding up, his eyes fall shut, his moans echoing in the room as his mouth separates further to accommodate the sounds. 

Eyes opening, perfervid, securing on Dick’s, Damian cums, fingers tightening around his bicep, carving into his skin, heated lines of his orgasm painting Dick’s stomach and the black cotton of his shirt. 

Dick’s gaze stays planted on Damian’s, his eyes dilated in pleasure, and euphoria he’s never seen from Damian, or imagined him capable of. Dick pulls his limp body closer, kissing him heated, and messy, gasping into his mouth as he finishes on his own abdomen, streaks of white parallel to Damian’s own marks. 

Damian bites his lip, and Dick bites back, as he comes down, convulsing. The kiss dwindles, but they stay lazy and attached, noses nudging, eyes closed. Their eyelashes brush, Damian’s heated cheek going against his. 

The clearest of curses tickles his ear, as Damian jolts against him, softly whining at the sensation, feeling his cum on Dick’s body. The hand on his arm slithers up his neck, sketching his collarbone and the arc of his throat. His fingers drift up into his hair, twirling around the waves. “It feels better with you,” he whispers, the words as heated against his ear as they are traveling to the pit of his stomach. 

Dick laughs, nervous, though he’s never felt nervous after sex, but Damian yanks out elements never before to surface, confined behind layers of failed relationships and waning passion. “Everything feels better with you.”

A tranquil, shared quiet emerges in the space of Dick’s room. Damian’s fingertips massage his nape in tender, lethargic strokes, his head resting on his collarbone.

Dick’s fingers tease where his shirt has twisted and ridden up, chasing after the scar tissue over his spine, caressing the jut of bones and rough skin. 

In a different kind of ecstasy, Dick gently laughs. “Hey… Damian. Do you like me?”

Damian lifts his head, glaring at him, but it is undeniably placated. “What are we, schoolchildren?”

Dick can’t do anything but grin. “I like you,” he says, circling his fingertips over his spine. “Quite a bit, actually.”

Damian smiles back. “I _may_  share the sentiment.” 

“Oh?” Dick pulls him closer and kisses him. “You may?”

The shifting makes the viscidness between them apparent. Damian removes his shirt, and cleans the mess between them, tossing it away. “You dirtied my shirt, Richard.”

Dick’s hands go to his waist. “I think you can afford it.” 

He smirks down at him. “Maybe I’ll keep it. For the memory…” He leans forward, lips against Dick’s, speaking against his mouth. “The first time I came on you.” 

Dick closes the gap. “How sweet,” he drawls. He kisses him again, then his cheek. Damian kisses down his neck as their legs entwine. 

Damian lays over his chest, listening to his breathing; a combination of respiration belonging solely to Dick. It relaxes him, soothes him in a way nothing else has.

“You’re the best person I’ve ever met,” Damian mumbles, right over the thumping of his heart.

Dick traces the bones of his shoulder, the stab wound beginning to scar. He thinks of the days, and the months, each moment he’s shared with Damian― and he finds himself empty of regret; forgetting all his contrite. 

If this is what it leads to, he’d make the same mistakes, over and over again. 


End file.
